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An issue like this should, in practice, be an argument against a monolithic service. For example, if Xbox Live were down, you wouldn’t be able to access Netflix, which is still available to users even though the PSN is down. This should have been an incredible first showing for Portal 2, seeing as its richest functionality exists on a robust and venerable parallel network. But Steam access is gated via their warped-ass oculus for some reason, even though other partners aren’t held to the same standard.

The thing to say on your web is that since PSN is free you can’t really complain about it, and that’s pretty dumb. Maybe you could have said that if you couldn’t play Ratchet and Clank online with your Playstation 2, but that era is ****ing over. By “that era,” I’m referring to the one where chains of appliance “islands” exist in millions of discrete universes across the globe. The store, your friends list, these aren’t perks. By 2011, they’re bedrock assertions of the medium. The deal they made with users - one which, for years, was the justification for a gruesome price disparity - was “free Xbox Live,” not “shit happens.”

1) Why? A mini-CD has a storage of around 200 megs (there are different densities available). That's low enough that you could easily download it on anything except dialup, and a huge step backwards from the DVD in the Wii.
2) No DVD means no Wii compatibility. Nintendo included Gamecube support in the Wii and GBA support in the first two versions of the DS. The Wii is a huge success, as opposed to the Gamecube, and they'd dump that compatibility because the slot is too big? What are they, Apple?

The new Mac Pro has up to 30 MB of cache inside the processor itself. That's more than the HD in my first Mac. Somehow I'm still running out of space.

1) Why? A mini-CD has a storage of around 200 megs (there are different densities available). That's low enough that you could easily download it on anything except dialup, and a huge step backwards from the DVD in the Wii.

Well, I was speaking media size. While I think this is fake, the idea of Nintendo being so stubborn as to create some new fangled Blu-Ray version of mini-CD is completely credible.

Originally Posted by P

2) No DVD means no Wii compatibility. Nintendo included Gamecube support in the Wii and GBA support in the first two versions of the DS. The Wii is a huge success, as opposed to the Gamecube, and they'd dump that compatibility because the slot is too big? What are they, Apple?

However given that point, it is not. Wii backwards compatibility is a virtual guarantee.

As if the story of the PlayStation Network's week-long downtime couldn't get more speculative, fresh Intel from a user on Reddit is lending credence to the theory that illegal downloads on a significant scale caused Sony to shut down its online services.

Modded PS3s that allow users to download PSN content for free were among the first things blamed when Sony confirmed it had suffered "external intrusions," and a PSX-Scene moderator has seemingly spilled the beans on how it was done.

Using custom firmware that makes a retail PS3 act like a debug unit, hackers were able to get onto a "trusted" version of PSN reserved for reviewers and developers. Since users of this network were considered kosher, fake credentials were never checked, and people could help themselves without having to give up real personal details or fork over a single dime.

This is not confirmed to be the root cause of the shutdown, but it's been gathered together based on factual occurrences. People had indeed been using a new custom Firmware to steal content, whether or not this is the reason for Sony's actions. In any case, this speculation has been far more informative than Sony wants to be. Take that for what it's worth.

As the article notes, this has been wandering around the web the past few days. If this does turn out to be the case, I guess it wasn't a DDOS after all.

As the article notes, this has been wandering around the web the past few days. If this does turn out to be the case, I guess it wasn't a DDOS after all.

I don't think that is the case. Why not just shut down "trusted" access until they came up with a fix regarding the piracy? Why close the whole network? Piracy must have been pretty damn rampant for them to shut down everything right before a holiday weekend.

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar

I forgot ask, you think XBOX Live has seen a spike in activity the past week?

I would say so. That free XBOX Live promotion MS had over the holiday weekend was perfect timing.

I don't think that is the case. Why not just shut down "trusted" access until they came up with a fix regarding the piracy? Why close the whole network? Piracy must have been pretty damn rampant for them to shut down everything right before a holiday weekend.

From what I read, any of the spoofed dev consoles were able to make unlimited purchases using fake credit cards.

Originally Posted by Stogieman

I would say so. That free XBOX Live promotion MS had over the holiday weekend was perfect timing.

It sounded like an attack on the servers, which could easily happen to Microsoft, too.

I figured that might be the case.

Pardon me for throwing around a lot of shit I don't understand, but I heard mention of LOIC being used earlier this weekend. Would that cause this kind of thing? Is that a type of hack or something that could enable a hack?

Launch it, let it ask to log onto PSN. It will ask once more, just do the same. Once your Instant Que displays you are good to go. Odd, it says you need a PSN account to access but it actually doesn't.

Pardon me for throwing around a lot of shit I don't understand, but I heard mention of LOIC being used earlier this weekend. Would that cause this kind of thing? Is that a type of hack or something that could enable a hack?

LOIC is a DoS attack, meaning it's only purpose is to deny service. This may have been used in the earlier attack which brought PSN down, but in this case, it was Sony who brought PSN down until they could figure out WTF was going on. LOIC is not a hack, nor would it enable a hack.

Anyone else think Sony is kinda just throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks? Sooo many devices.

It's starting to smack of desperation. I'm dying to know why they didn't just say, "Here's a PS3, and here's a PSP. This is what we're working on, and we're going to make these two devices the best we can."

Overextending yourself, even when you're such a large company, is possible.

Originally Posted by Stogieman

Well that's just great. I'll be checking my credit card account daily for any fraudulent charges.

Way to go Sony, you just lost a customer.

I'm not 100% sure they've lost me yet, but I can guarantee you I won't be paying for Playstation Plus ever again. I'm too excited about Infamous 2 and Uncharted 2 to abandon them, but next generation, I'm definitely going to hold off on them for a long time.

Originally Posted by boy8cookie

It sounded like an attack on the servers, which could easily happen to Microsoft, too.

...but it hasn't.

It makes me wonder if they're somehow more susceptible to an attack than MSoft is. Also, how is this affecting 75 million people if only 50 million people have bought PS3s? Is it PSP customers?

Originally Posted by exca1ibur

Launch it, let it ask to log onto PSN. It will ask once more, just do the same. Once your Instant Que displays you are good to go. Odd, it says you need a PSN account to access but it actually doesn't.

Bah...too irritated at them at the moment to even turn on my PS3. I can use the 360 or AppleTV.

I let my XBOX live account go silver the other week, and didn't renew it since I got a few PS3 games in the last few months and because of school (more friends with XBOX). But now it looks like I'll be renewing that XBOX Live sooner.
And my credit card information was stolen a few weeks ago. I did use it to buy something on the PS Store. But don't know for sure how my information was stolen since a few institutions had information problems, Best Buy being one that I remember.

LOIC is a DoS attack, meaning it's only purpose is to deny service. This may have been used in the earlier attack which brought PSN down, but in this case, it was Sony who brought PSN down until they could figure out WTF was going on. LOIC is not a hack, nor would it enable a hack.

I won't bore you people with the crazy shit I've read on the GAF forums, I'll just clarify that I'm covering my bases. I definitely do not understand intenret security, and wanted to make sure something brute force such as a DDOS didn't have have the ability to do other things.

I look forward to ars breaking this sucker down at some point.

Originally Posted by Jawbone54

I'm not 100% sure they've lost me yet, but I can guarantee you I won't be paying for Playstation Plus ever again. I'm too excited about Infamous 2 and Uncharted 2 to abandon them, but next generation, I'm definitely going to hold off on them for a long time.

So, does this affect the NGP release buzz?

Seriously, though, this was it, right? There is no hope for year of the PS3 anymore. This year was their last chance and I just don't see it. I don't see how they'll ever get to the top of the sales heap, or even second really (Have they ever finished second in the US for a year?). I wouldn't classify the PS3 as failure, but I don't see how it'll ever be a success. It is the GameCube of this generation (though a really nice one).

Originally Posted by Jawbone54

It makes me wonder if they're somehow more susceptible to an attack than MSoft is. Also, how is this affecting 75 million people if only 50 million people have bought PS3s? Is it PSP customers?

Yeah. Didn't you know PSN numbers were pure BS? Not to mention the free nature means a lot were secondary and tertiary accounts (if people will do this with XBOX Live Gold which is $50ish a year, they're definitely doing this with a free service)

Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal is "demanding answers" about why Sony Computer Entertainment of America failed to inform customers of the data breach of the PlayStation Network on April 20.

"When a data breach occurs, it is essential that customers be immediately notified about whether and to what extent their personal and financial information has been compromised," Blumenthal said in a release. "Compounding this concern is the troubling lack of notification from Sony about the nature of the data breach."

While Sony discovered that hackers had broken into their Playstation Network on April 19, it wasn't until nearly a week later that the company understood the full scope of the breach, a Sony official tells Kotaku.

The company learned that customer data was stolen on Monday, only after an outside security firm conducted days of forensic analysis, Sony said.

What a week! First Sony has a little trouble with its online security, and now Microsoft is issuing warnings about people running "phishing" scams over Xbox Live.

A "phishing" attempt is when a player is contacted by another in an attempt to get hold of things like service passwords and credit card information. It's a fairly common thing over online services, but there are obviously enough attempts going on related to a single title at this specific time (in this case, Modern Warfare 2) that Microsoft needed to put up a warning about it.

While we've received confirmation that banned consoles are now able to reconnect to Xbox Live, we've yet to hear of anybody doing anything more than simply sign in (as in, play online or purchase content), so there's no word yet on whether these consoles are genuinely "un-banned" or whether they can now simply go one step further than they could previously go before being locked out.
Note that this applies to consoles that were banned for being modified, specifically with a flashed disc drive (not other means, like a "JTAG" mod). It does not apply for bans handed out to people being assholes over Xbox Live.

Seriously, don't do this to me, man!

UPDATE - The reanimated machines are now banned once more. That was fast!

What about those poor souls who want to enjoy these film-like qualities, but can't manage to virtual-shoot to save their virtual-lives? According to MTV Multipalyer, Rockstar art director Rob Nelson assuaged this group's fears while demoing the game at the Tribeca Film Festival last night, telling attendees that they'll be afforded the option to skip action sequences after failing them two or three times.

I see both the good and bad in this. As much as I love Rockstar, their action can be sometimes tedious or frustrating affairs thanks to the GTA camera and controls, and the ability to skip them in a game where the focus is not combat, looks like a good decision on the surface.

The negative being that this treads on Black Ops "you are a bystander" territory.

For a console with an impressive install base of more 86 million, you might think that Nintendo wouldn't have any regrets about the Wii. But Nintendo's CEO says he does have one regret, one that he intends to address in the future.

"I now regret that we didn't tie up with someone outside the company to market the Wii," said Satoru Iwata at a recent investor conference, speculating that the "fate of the Wii might have been different."

I believe the appropriate term here is crocodile tears. "Oh if only we had been on better relations with the third party developers! Then we wouldn't have suffered the agony of limitless sales and decimating the competition year after year in hardware and software moved! Why? Why? Why did we choose that path?!"

It reminds me of a great basketball "What if?" If you're the Detroit Pistons, do you trade the 2004 Championship in for a draft mulligan, take Carmelo over Darko and play things out again? I don't think you do. You take the championship and run. Or if you're Nintendo, the money. You can always buy off the developers, after all.

Of course. If Sony doesn't somehow make a tremendous bounce-back before NGP release, I'd say this is a big enough deal to cut out at least 33% of its initial sales.

Seriously, though, this was it, right? There is no hope for year of the PS3 anymore. This year was their last chance and I just don't see it. I don't see how they'll ever get to the top of the sales heap, or even second really (Have they ever finished second in the US for a year?). I wouldn't classify the PS3 as failure, but I don't see how it'll ever be a success. It is the GameCube of this generation (though a really nice one).

Yeah, this is it. PS3's absolute best games of the year still have yet to come, but this is as big of a PR disaster as we've seen a prominent console experience, ever. Can anyone remember anything worse?

50 million consoles sold isn't a failure, but it's a significant step down from the PS1 and PS2:

PS1 - 102,000,000
PS2 - 150,000,000
PS3 - 50,000,000 (to date)

Sony totally misread the market at the onset of this generation. They've still not recovered. I don't believe they're DOA for the next generation, but they'd better develop a completely new mindset before it begins, and they're probably too rigid and arrogant of a company to do that. I've kept up with these guys as any dedicated fanboy(ish) would, and I'm sometimes staggered at how ignorant and defiant they can be.

Yeah. Didn't you know PSN numbers were pure BS? Not to mention the free nature means a lot were secondary and tertiary accounts (if people will do this with XBOX Live Gold which is $0 a year, they're definitely doing this with a free service)

Every service and console's numbers are BS -- we're all aware of that. However, I'm still wondering how they could get away with padding the numbers by around 25,000,000.

Yeah, this is it. PS3's absolute best games of the year still have yet to come, but this is as big of a PR disaster as we've seen a prominent console experience, ever. Can anyone remember anything worse?

Two years of RROD murmurings?

Originally Posted by Jawbone54

50 million consoles sold isn't a failure, but it's a significant step down from the PS1 and PS2

Yeah, that's my point. If MS was putting up these numbers we'd say they were making progress compared to last gen.

Originally Posted by Jawbone54

Every service and console's numbers are BS -- we're all aware of that. However, I'm still wondering how they could get away with padding the numbers by around 25,000,000.

Yes, but some more than others. Sony likes to put their PSN numbers out as an Apples-to-Apples comparison to XBOX Live when in reality they include the PSP and are free.

I don't remember people panicking about it on this level. My PS3 friends are running to banks, canceling debit cards, ordering new ones, and badmouthing Sony's sloppiness concerning the situation. With the RRoD fiasco, it was like, "You guys are losing a tooooon of money having to repair all these units." With Sony, it's, "You sued a hacker (who didn't support piracy in his hack), got a ton of bad press, (sort of) brought this on yourself, neglected to be truthful with your users, and from what I understand, didn't properly encrypt a lot of this information to begin with." They didn't look out for their customers -- they lied to them and screwed them.

What happened after Sony pulled the plug on PlayStation Network, and before it finally alerted customers that their information had been compromised during an unlawful intrusion? According to SCEE head of communications Nick Caplin, writing in a post on the European PlayStation blog this morning, Sony's lackluster communication efforts were impeded because the company didn't immediately assume the worst. "There's a difference in timing between when we identified there was an intrusion and when we learned of consumers' data being compromised," Caplin says.

He goes on to explain that Sony learned of the "illegal intrusion" on April 19 and "subsequently shut the services down," though the official FAQ he links to in his post claims that Sony found the breach "between April 17 and 19." Furthermore, Caplin says that after shutting down PSN and Qriocity, "It was necessary to conduct several days of forensic analysis, and it took our experts until yesterday to understand the scope of the breach." There's your disparity.

The FAQ further notes that services will remain down until Sony can "verify smooth operation" of its network, though the company is "working hard to resume the services as soon as we can be reasonably assured security concerns are addressed." It also notes that folks looking for refunds may be out of luck for the moment, as Sony "will assess the correct course of action" regarding such requests when "full services are restored."

If they didn't originally comprehend the severity of the problem, then why shut the whole thing down?

Only thing I think of is that once the hackers got on the internal network, they were 'technically' seen as valid dev machines (Since there is no verification on the internal network). So from that point you have to crosscheck IPs and accounts to see what actually is valid as REAL dev account. Either way it's bad network architecture and I'm sure they will have several job openings this month.

Hey! I've bought Madden almost every year since first playing it on the Genesis.

I was surprised that Hillis actually won it, but it's not unfathomable. I'm sure Browns fans stuff the ballots, but he's an easy guy to like -- soft-spoken, humble, and absolutely steamrolls his way through defenders.

I was kind of hoping for Vick to win it, personally. Would've just about capped off a great redemption story (I'm sure Vick winning a Super Bowl would be the real kicker).

I work for a local credit union and our VP of Loss Prevention sent out an e-mail today that many of our members are already being proactive about requesting new debit cards because of the PSN intrusion. Over the last 2 days we've had over 4,000 calls requesting new debit cards! Our phone center has been overwhelmed with calls. Crazy shit! Never would have thought Sony would cause such chaos for our company.

I think one of the first rules of internet polls is they're extremely easy to troll. I imagine this guy had to be one of the worst choices available. Score one of internet trolls!

Originally Posted by KCrosbie

Been away for a few days. Missed out on a lot it seems.

I work for a local credit union and our VP of Loss Prevention sent out an e-mail today that many of our members are already being proactive about requesting new debit cards because of the PSN intrusion. Over the last 2 days we've had over 4,000 calls requesting new debit cards! Our phone center has been overwhelmed with calls. Crazy shit! Never would have thought Sony would cause such chaos for our company.

The UK's Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), a non-departmental public body, has contacted Sony to determine where PlayStation Network data is stored -- not in an effort to locate the hackers who reportedly grabbed it, but to determine whether any of it is being stored in the UK.

If PSN user data is stored in the UK, then it is subject to the Data Protection Act, which requires companies that hold personal data to provide adequate security for it. Notably, the law would trump Sony's PSN Terms and Conditions, which includes the line: "We exclude all liability for loss of data or unauthorised access to your data, Sony Online Network account or Sony Online Network wallet and for damage caused to your software or hardware as a result of using or accessing Sony Online Network."

"If we found a breach," an ICO rep told Edge, "one of the actions we could take would be to issue an undertaking, which is an agreement between the ICO and the company that if they are handling personal information they have to bring about set improvements in order for them to be compliant with the act." If the company fails to comply, the rep added, "further action would be taken, and we might consider an enforcement notice or issue a monetary penalty." For a serious breach, the fine can reach £500,000 (more than $800,000).

Sony is reportedly making the most of the PlayStation Network's hacker-triggered downtime by providing developers with new security tools to integrate into their games. Gamasutra cites development sources who say that they are being asked to begin using a new version of the PS3 SDK prior to PSN going back online, something that's supposed to happen within the next seven days.

First off, Sony is "working on a new system software update that will require all users to change their password once PlayStation Network is restored." It's also been confirmed that PSN is being physically rebuilt as a result of last week's intrusion. SCEA PR director Patrick Seybold states in the FAQ that the company is "moving our network infrastructure and data center to a new, more secure location, which is already underway."

Also revealed: While "the entire credit card table was encrypted" and there remains "no evidence that credit card data was taken," PSN's personal data table "was not encrypted, but was, of course, behind a very sophisticated security system."

I fondly remember Driver from the PSOne days. It was GTA before GTA (3D). Of course, after it's inital success, it seems the developrs didn't really know where to go with it, and floundered.

Case in point:

Driver: San Francisco once again sees players stepping into the shoes of Tanner, who, after being involved in an accident, gains the unusual ability to shift into the bodies of other drivers in the game on-the-fly.

Uh, yeah. My very tepid interest in this is purely because San Fran was a riot to drive back in the day.

Though the PlayStation Network and Qriocity side of Sony's digital services may have been subject to a massive breach of user information, it seems that Sony Online Entertainment product users are safe. SOE reps took to Sony's forums to clear the air, saying, "We have been conducting a thorough investigation and, to the best of our knowledge, no customer personal information got out to any unauthorized person or persons."

However, the content has been described to me by one informed source intimate with the PlayStation 3 as "looking about right", and it ties in with previously established information on how PS3 talks to the PSN servers. This opens up a whole new can of worms about what is swiftly transforming into one of the biggest security breaches of the internet age.

The inference is simple: PSN vulnerabilities were well-known and being discussed in public months ago, and Sony didn't act soon enough. Bearing in mind the colossal wealth of evidence the platform holder has lifted from PS3 hacking sites and presented during the Geohot legal case, it's clear that ignorance of these claims doesn't hold water. Sony is clearly paying close attention to the hacking "scene" and has been since the original PSJailbreak appeared last summer.

PSN security has been breached server-side and all the information the user entrusts to Sony when signing up to the service has been compromised. Names, addresses, login details, security questions and passwords have been purloined – and while the platform holder isn't 100 per cent sure that credit card details have been stolen, it won't rule out the possibility.

The whole notion that password details have been taken defies belief. There's a reason that most internet sites can't tell you what your own password is and can only reset it – it's because the server itself doesn't actually store it at all. Your chosen password is hashed when it's first transmitted, and only this checksum is stored. When you enter your login, the password is hashed again and compared to what is on the system – if we have a match, you are granted access.

In short, there is no actual need whatsoever for your password to be stored server-side at all. Sony's statement suggests that it was actually storing sensitive information in plain text format, which defies belief. The only other explanation is that hackers only got access to the hashes and may have compromised a small minority of passwords by running this data through something like a dictionary look-up. However, from the tone of Sony's apology this does not appear to be the case.

In a new, late night edition of PlayStation Blog's Q&A, Sony responds to our outcries for compensation, saying, "We are currently evaluating ways to show appreciation for your extraordinary patience as we work to get these services back online."

Yeah, you guys go ahead and evaluate if you want some good PR for a change.

Brands are weird. They are both robust and delicate. On the one hand, the mythos of Sony's excellence doesn't just go away, any more than Toyota's formidable reputation did after its troubles last year.

On the other, the brand has already slipped from pre-eminence to also-ran, and this debacle can't do it any good. The PlayStation brand has been in decline for the entire life-cycle of PlayStation 3, while the Xbox and Nintendo brands have been steadily rising even through their own turmoils, like RROD and Wii's general faddishness. Unarguably, PlayStation is no longer a byword for next generation entertainment.

Not exactly the best article. It has all the quality of some opinionated dude who likes to post news on an internet forum.